Japan rail crash death toll tops 100

The confirmed death toll in Japan's worst rail accident in 40 years topped 100 and is set to rise as rescue workers desperately tried to recover bodies still inside a crushed train car.

Seven bodies were extracted from the wreckage overnight, bringing the official toll to 101.

The remaining bodies are in the front carriage of the train, embedded in the ground-floor car park of an apartment building.

The car has been crushed to less than half of its original length of about 20 metres (66 feet).

"It's been compressed into half its size so we can't see the inside at all, but we think there are 10 or so people still inside," a local fire department official said.

"Unfortunately, we cannot detect any vital signs."

Rescue teams have been using ultrasound equipment and other high-tech gear to check for heart beats and breathing, but there was no sign of life and no survivors have been found since early on Tuesday when three people were pulled from the wreckage.

Investigators have yet to conclude why the packed commuter train jumped the tracks on the outskirts of the western city of Osaka and smashed into a nine-storey apartment building, but excessive speed seems to have played a role.

The driver of the train, a 23-year-old man with 11 months' experience, had overshot the previous station by about 40 metres (130 feet), putting the train more than a minute behind schedule.

Media have also said the pressure put on the drivers by train operator West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) may have contributed to the accident, which also injured 458 people, many seriously.

Kenji Ito, an official at Japan Confederation of Railway Workers Unions said that JR West was particularly harsh on employees responsible for train delays, giving them reprimands, cutting salaries and subjecting them to a "re-education" process that in some cases was tantamount to being "pilloried".

The driver of the derailed train had also over-shot a station by 100 metres (328 feet) last June and may have been worried that he would be punished, media reports and analysts said.

The accident was the worst for Japan's heavily used rail network since 1963 when about 160 people were killed in a multiple train collision, and the most serious since Japan's rail network was privatised in 1987.

Japan's rail network transports about 21 billion people a year and the government is keen to assure the country that the system is safe.